As of December 2006, the United States had 115 marketers licensed to serve residential customers, of which 82 were actively enrolling new customers. For simplification purposes, the term “marketer” is used to refer to a variety of competitive retail residential natural gas suppliers. These are defined here:

Aggregator / Core Transport Agent – a person or entity that contracts with a pool of retail customers and supplies their gas load on an aggregated basis.

Broker / Retail Agent – a person or entity that assumes the contractual and legal responsibility for the sale and supply of gas to a retail customer without ever owning the gas itself.

Marketer – a person or entity that assumes the contractual and legal responsibility for the sale and supply of gas to a retail customer while also owning the gas at some point during the transaction.

It is important to note that some States may use different terminology to describe competitive retail natural gas suppliers. The following table provides a summary of how many natural gas marketers are currently licensed and active, and provides links for more information about specific States.